


gossip

by pleadingforclarity



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adorable FitzSimmons (Agents of SHIELD), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. References, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Platonic Female/Female Relationships, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Post-Bahrain (Agents of SHIELD), SHIELD, SHIELD Family, Spies & Secret Agents, a bunch of other characters that i created out of thin air
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13320423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleadingforclarity/pseuds/pleadingforclarity
Summary: agent crawford is new to the playground, heck, new to S.H.I.E.L.D. in general. so when she overhears a group of agents in the locker room talking about her boss, Agent Simmons, and the head of the engineering wing, Agent Fitz, curiosity overcomes her.she might just end up hearing the greatest love story of all time. who knows.set season 4, with happiness for all!





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> (hopefully y'all still remember dear agent crawford)

It was lunch break, and Agent Crawford had just finished her fourth morning as a S.H.I.E.L.D. biochemist.

Suffice to say, she was tired. Overwhelmed. Pretty much done. Today, it was because her main focus of the morning was running tests on the head of a freaking human-looking robot, or "life model decoy", as Dr. Fitz had explained.

Such was the life of an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

After finishing the last of the diagnostics on the thing (which was safe under a sheet), she wiped her brow with her lab coat, washed her hands, and buzzed out. At once, it felt like she was being pushed downstream, the hallway buzzing with people in suits, coats, and the occasional man (and even scarcer, woman) in tactical gear. 

The unfortunate thing was, she didn’t really like people. At all. 

After growing up in a small town with an above-above average IQ, she was wary of most folks who tried to talk to her. She disliked being trapped in a conversation, filled with dread at the thought of being crammed in an elevator with more than three people. She hated herself for it, but she didn’t like discussing things that weren’t science related, or talking with people who weren’t doctors. Outside of the lab she would stutter and blush and just result to smiling and nodding and muttering the occasional ‘yeah’. And yet, even with all of that, here she was, at an intelligence agency with a lot more people then the 6 best friends she'd left back home in her college lab.

It took her a while to remember which doorway to turn left into in order to enter the locker room. She'd never really had to move around a lot, so getting used to new spaces wasn't her strong suit. 

Once she pushed her way through an opening in the sea of suits, she shut the door carefully and made her way to her locker. Grabbing her lunch, her phone, and her water, she decided to sit in the courtyard she had found during her previous break. Alone, with her cell, she could maybe even call her friends in the lab back home. They'd still be at work, and maybe she could—

“Hey, do you guys know the deal with Agent Simmons? The SADIST woman, or whatever?” 

The voice belonged to the group of women sitting on the floor by the far wall, made up mostly of her peers. 

She tried her hardest not to be, but she was curious. Since she didn’t go to the Academy (a long story, mostly involving her finding a way to use electrophoresis on alien DNA before she even knew the sample was alien, being recruited by men in black suits, etc.) she didn’t know anyone she worked with or any of the gossip. Which made it harder to make friends, since gossiping was the only thing they did in their free time- the little free time they had, anyway. Even though they were all as smart as she was (and probably smarter, actually), she couldn’t find the courage to talk to them. It wasn’t like her tiny lab back at home. There were tons of scientists here and she was set on leaving the whole "friendship" thing alone. Better to be safe and comfortable than meeting a thousand people a day and having to keep track of all of those names. 

And Dr. (Dr.) Simmons was her director- everyone’s director in the science wing, really. She was strong, steely, and brilliant: everyone Crawford hoped she would someday become.

“Jemma Simmons? The Jemma Simmons?” another woman asked incredulously. Crawford recognized her as a member of the engineering department. Older. Worked with Dr. Fitz, another higher-up guy who seemed to have been at S.H.I.E.L.D. for a while.

“Yeah,” the girl asked through a mouthful of potato, “what’s her deal? How did she get her position so young? I want to see if—”

The woman (Dr. Kimte, she finally remembered) stopped her before she could continue. “Oh, honey…” she looked up at the ceiling if as to ask a higher power for help. The woman next to her groaned, rolling her eyes. Crawford didn't recognize that one. 

“You've asked for it,” Kimte chuckled, rubbing her hands together. The other, much younger girls quieted down, watching her with big eyes. She continued. “This is the story of a woman who's vanquished destiny. Hell, even the laws of science.”

At that line, Crawford was transfixed. Kimte’s friend, the woman who had groaned, sighed dramatically, “And it’s a long one, especially when Julie, here,” she elbowed Kimte, “gets on a roll. So is everyone ready? Cause we’re going to be here a while.”

Crawford quickly directed her attention back to her phone, realizing that she had been staring. She really, really wanted to stay, but she had made a pact with herself. So she grabbed her things and stood up, walking towards the door again. 

“Honey, you too! Come sit down. You’re Agent Crawford, right?”

The moment Dr. Kimte’s voice rang out in the practically empty locker room, Crawford was filled with apprehension and, surprisingly, joy. Which made for an odd mix of feelings.

So she took at breath and turned around, smiling.

“You need to hear this story too, newbie. Everyone who passes through the science wing _deserves_ to hear this story.” 

Kimte was smiling welcomingly. Crawford decided that she liked the older woman.

“Oh, Julie—”

“No, Clarice,” Kimte said knowingly, beckoning Crawford with a hand and patting a spot on the ground with the other. “This is a rite of passage. If I’m gonna tell some of the newer ladies, I’m telling _all_ of them.”

So, against her better judgement, Crawford walked over and sat down, cross-legged. The floor was cold, but the women around her radiated strength and warmth and kindness, so it didn’t really matter.

There was a brief silence, and Kimte sucked in a breath. “Are you sure we have time for this? Lunch ends—”

The scientists all groaned and yelled at Kimte, who was laughing. After some fake punches, cajoling, and laughs, they settled down. “Alright, alright,” Kimte smiled, sighing and raising her eyebrows. 

“It all began at the Academy, where the two of them met."

"Which two?", one of the girls asked. Crawford watched Kimte expectantly. 

"Fitz and Simmons, of course."


	2. the meeting

“ _Fitz_ and _Simmons_?” asked the girl incredulously, crinkling her nose and pretending to gag. “I know I work with Agent Mackenzie all the way in the hangar, but we aren’t _that_ far from the science department!”

Crawford laughed with the rest of them and smiled at the girl, glancing at her I.D. badge as fast as she could. It had been something with an S, but the girl had turned away before she could get a closer look.

The five of them were all sitting on the floor, wedged between the lockers and the bench. Agent Kimte and her friend, “Clarice”, another agent who’s I.D. Crawford couldn’t read, were sitting against the lockers and sharing food. She, the ‘S’ agent, and another girl she didn’t know, (but obviously friends with agent ‘S’, as they were sharing food too), were all sitting against the bench. Crawford was uncomfortable with the wooden bar jamming into her back, but she was too curious and anxious to move away. 

She did know that Agents Fitz and Simmons were together, of course, the pair of them had sent out a S.H.I.E.L.D. wide memo to clarify the “intent of their relationship”. But she didn’t know how long either of them had been in S.H.I.E.L.D., or how they’d even had the chance to get “involved”. The whole thing confused her, because when she’d been briefed by Mace on her first day, he had said relationships were restricted between agents, and that they wouldn’t have time, anyways. 

“But I thought agents weren’t… allowed, uh, to be, um…”

“Romantically involved?” Kimte replied, taking a bite of a sandwich. She raised one eyebrow and spoke through a mouthful of food. “These too were together _before_ the rules were made.”

Crawford raised her eyebrows at that. The outgoing technician girl laughed and playfully prodded Kimte’s leg with her shoe. “Go on!”

Kimte smiled and swallowed, wiping her mouth with her sleeve and continuing. 

“Jemma Simmons met Leopold—“

“Leopold?” technician girl repeated, throwing her head back and grabbing her friend’s hand as she shook with laughter. “Oh my god, I should’ve known. Of course his name’s _Leopold_ , it suits him so well—“

“It really doesn’t,” Kimte interrupted, smiling sadly. The technician girl (boy, was Crawford tired of calling her that) lowered her eyes as her lips tightened. Crawford guessed she felt bad about the laughing but was more curious about Kimte’s sudden change of mood to say anything else. 

Kimte inhaled and began again.

“Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz met at SciTech when they were both sixteen years old.”

“Woah,” Crawford whispered. She couldn’t imagine going to the Academy at her age now. But at _16_? You either had to be insanely smart or just _insane_ to get that far that young. 

“Sixteen years old? And they had their PhDs?” technician girl asked, her eyes wide. 

“Agent Simmons already had two, actually,” Clarice, Kimte’s friend, interjected to a chorus of gasps. When the group of them looked at Kimte for confirmation, she nodded, much to technician girl’s chagrin. 

“ _Two_? You’ve got to be joking.”

“Cross my heart,” Kimte said through another bite of her sandwich, looking nonplussed. 

Technician girl was waving her arms around and shaking her head like she wouldn’t, couldn’t believe it. “So they were both super nerds. Like, _we’re_ nerds, I mean, we’re _here_ , aren’t we? But that’s a whole other _level_ of smart.” 

The group murmured in agreement. Suddenly, Clarice glanced at Kimte with a knowing look on her face. When she saw the look, Kimte slapped Clarice's thigh, frantically shaking her head through a bite. When Clarice opened her mouth, Kimte groaned dramatically and rolled her eyes. 

“I heard a rumor that the pair of them were actually _enemies_ for the first coupe of months, but since Kimte hasn’t heard that one yet, she won’t believe it.”

Kimte swallowed, holding her hands up like a businesswoman. “What can I say, Clarice, I only tell the facts!”

“Yes, that’s right, you only tell the _facts_ here in this _gossip circle_ on the _locker room floor_.”

“I believe it,” technician girl’s shy friend practically whispered, her statement almost lost in the laughs of the two bickering friends. The group looked up from their food, (Crawford from her lap, as she hadn’t gotten around to eating) and waited expectantly for her to finish. The fact that no one interrupted her or discredited her opinion in this tight circle of people made Crawford curiously happy. She herself was used to being spoken over, used to being the only woman in the room, used to being a bystander, so the fact that these women cared enough to wait for another woman to speak sparked something inside of her that just changed the way she felt about her job. Changed the way she felt about making friends, maybe. 

The girl’s quiet voice interrupted her rapid-fire thoughts. “I mean, speaking from experience, I’m usually… intimidated by the smartest person in the room. And since the two of them were that, they probably steered clear of each other.” 

“What can I say, we’ll never know for sure,” Kimte replied, packing up her lunch. “I’ve got to go. My fearless SADIST leader is having us do an inventory of the lab and wants us to arrive early. Best you all did too, you know.” She stood up, stretching her back and rubbing where the locker latches had been. They all followed suit, slowly making their way to standing and gathering their things. Crawford walked back to her locker, stuffing her forgotten sandwich in her lab coat pocket and stuffing her bag back into the tiny compartment. 

“Hey, Crawford, you work for Simmons too, right? Come on!” Kimte said, beckoning Crawford with her one free hand— the other was on the doorknob. Crawford smiled and walked briskly over, trying not to look too excited. 

“See y’all later, maybe tomorrow, so we can finish this story of yours, Kimte?” technician girl shouted, her voice muffled by the amount of stuff in her locker. 

“Sure thing, Sarasota. But we’ll need at least a _month’s_ worth of lunches to finish it.”

Sarasota! _That’s_ what her name was. 

“I’m okay with that, as long as we sit somewhere else. I think my back might have a permanent indent of that damn bench.”

“That’s not as bad as the metal locker knobs in your back. And hey, since Kimte and I are older, so we get to decide the spot, hmm?” Clarice asked good-naturedly as she shut her locker and made her way toward the door. 

“That’s okay with me,” Crawford agreed, chuckling as she smiled at Clarice. 

“Alright then. See you ladies tomorrow at lunch. We’ll meet here,” Kimte said, straightening her badge. She tilted her neck towards the other side of the room. “Leslie, you hear all that?”

“Yes!” Leslie (formerly known as the shy one) murmured happily. “All good!”

So now Crawford knew all the names. Thank God. 

They all left the locker room, going their separate ways. But one thing was for sure— as she and Kimte made their way back to the lab, it appeared to Crawford that the number of men in suits in the hallway had seemed to diminish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! i'm getting waay too attached to these characters. keep checking in/subscribe for the updates (they're coming soon!).
> 
> i hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing it!


	3. introductions

Crawford had been taking inventory of the serum containers all day. Her job, in its entirety, was to take each and every serum tube out of one box, label them, and then place them into another more organized box. 

Inventory, Crawford had discovered, was the bane of her existence. She found it impossible to concentrate on the glowing, blue, identical containers and had constantly been losing her place. Her gloves were sticky and her hair was itchy in its loose ponytail and she had been kneeling so long, her legs were asleep. 

“Agent Crawford? Can you give these specs to Agent Fitz, please?”

She hadn’t heard a voice in the lab since she’d clocked in that morning, so the sharp English accent (that she was already predisposed to fear) made her jump in her seat. Agent Simmons was standing over her, looking mildly amused, her eyes warm behind her stern look. Crawford stood up, her knees cracking audibly, and Simmons raised her eyebrows. 

“Been doing this a while, hmm?”

Crawford bit her lip, cringing. “Yes, actually. Since lunch yesterday.”

Jemma smiled and glanced at her pinging tablet, engrossed in whatever notification she’d received. She nodded, eyes locked on the tablet, and walked away. “Perfect opportunity to stretch your legs then, agent. Thank you!” she called over her shoulder. Crawford sighed and nodded, mostly to herself. Double-checking her place in the serum count, adjusting her lab coat, and grabbing the LMD specs off the counter where Simmons had left them, she started on her way to the workshop, stretching her legs as she walked. 

As she walked out of the lab, she bumped into agent walking in the other direction, apologized absentmindedly, and then looked up. Sarasota. 

“Oh god, I’m sorry!” she sputtered, reaching out her hand to check if Sarasota was okay, and then immediately regretting it. Sarasota was smiling widely, eyes on her as if she was looking right into her soul. Crawford felt herself begin to sweat. 

“You already apologized, no biggie, Crawford.” she chirped, running her hands over her lab coat, like she was dusting herself off. 

Crawford kept babbling as Sarasota began to playfully check herself for injuries. “No, of course I did, yeah, but—“

“Keep it together. You’re fine,” the other agent said, shaking her head and chuckling. 

Crawford smiled and nodded, ready to leave and never speak to anyone ever again. Sarasota raised her eyebrows, waiting out the awkward pause. “You going somewhere?”

Crawford lit up, brushing her head out of her face and pursing her lips. “Yeah, actually, to the workshop. I have to give Agent Fitz some specs on the LMD he’s studying from the SADIST.”

Sarasota nodded. “Oh, cool. Mack was talking about that, actually,” Crawford didn’t know what to say. Is this how a conversation was supposed to go? Sarasota raised her eyebrows again and glanced ahead, clearing her throat. Crawford swayed in her spot, looking anywhere other than the agent.

She was on a schedule though, and she didn’t know how Agent Simmons acted when she was angry. She didn’t want to know. She coughed and murmured, “Well, I better get going, you know. Specs and all.”

“Of course,” Sarasota replied.

After a beat, Crawford continued her walk down the hallway, as brisk as she could without falling. 

“Hey, Crawford?” Sarasota called, her hands cupped around her mouth. Crawford turned around, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. “Yes?”

“My name’s Rajiya. Rajiya Sarasota. I saw you checking my badge out yesterday.” She said, pointing at her ID. 

“Oh, yeah. I _was_ doing that, wasn’t I,” she trailed off, dodging other agents walking past her. Sarasota, or Rajiya, she thought, put her hands on her hips, as if waiting for something. She suddenly remembered what an introduction entailed. 

“Um, my name is Julia, but you can call me Jules.”

“Nice. I’ll see ya later, Jules!” she called, waving, and turning around. Crawford stood there, basking in the aftershocks of severe embarrassment, before continuing towards the workshop. _Rajiya_. She liked that name.


	4. fzzt, and an incident.

“Crawford, meet us in the courtyard— five minutes,” Kimte said, nudging Crawford’s thigh with her shoe. From her ‘station’ on the floor, she watched jealously as Kimte shed her lab coat and dashed out the door, disappearing into the stream of people in the hallway. It was lunch, and Crawford was a third of the way done with inventory. Normally, she would’ve stayed and finished her work, but she didn’t see Agent Simmons, so she decided to bolt too, consoling herself by recalling the times she’d been a model agent in the past week and telling herself she’d been professional and hardworking.

 _Most_ of the time. 

Once she reached the locker room, she grabbed her lunch, slammed the locker with a finite huff, and then immediately regretted her dramatics. Her locker had made the most agonizing, depressing noise, and something metal and important-looking had clattered on the linoleum floor. 

“Wow, _somebody’s_ had a rough day,” a familiar voice chuckled. Rajiya, of course. Just her luck. 

Crawford turned around, trying to act as normal as possible. “Well, I have been doing inventory, so,” she quipped smoothly, raising her eyebrows. “ICER serum. It’s _really_ riveting.”

Sarasota (dammit, Rajiya) playfully cringed at her words as she padded to her own locker, mindlessly rifling through its contents for her lunch. “That sounds like hell on earth”

“It is, actually. I swear to god, I’ve had to stop myself from loading some pellets into an ICER and shooting myself point blank,” Crawford quipped, amazed at how easy the words came out of her mouth. 

Rajiya laughed aloud, closed her locker, and headed towards the courtyard, pausing for a moment to allow Crawford to catch up. “You’re really funny. I didn’t peg you as the dark, sarcastic type,” she commented, smiling slyly and elbowing her. Crawford elbowed back and made sure she was out of Rajiya’s reach before raising her palm to her forehead like a 40s film star, sighing dramatically. 

“Neither did I. But a rendezvous with three million serum pods… well, it changes a woman.” 

Rajiya laughed again, shaking her head as Crawford continued to drone on incessantly about the terrors of inventory. Once they’d reached the courtyard, Crawford’s favorite spot at S.H.I.E.L.D. so far, she was oddly happy to see that it was the favorite spot of her new friends. If she could call them that. 

Kimte and Clarice were sharing a salad, engrossed in conversation. When the pair of them saw Crawford and Sarasota enter the little area, Kimte chewed vigorously and gulped, craning her neck to see past the entrance to the courtyard. “Is Leslie coming? Rajiya, if you forgot to tell her—“

Rajiya shook her head as she sat down. “She’s stuck with the trainers.” Kimte and Clarice nodded, apparently knowing exactly what that phrase meant. The trainers? Crawford thought about asking, but decided against it, taking into account that the women were all looking at any place but in her direction. 

After a pause, Kimte took another bite of salad and patted the spot next to her, beckoning Crawford. “Sit down! Shall we pick up after I left off?”

Crawford laughed softly and got comfortable on the bench, opening up her lunch (ham and cheese today) and waited with Rajiya for Kimte to begin. 

“Now, I’m gonna skip ahead, since there’s a lot of material to cover,” Kimte said diplomatically, and Clarice choked on a bite. “ _Material_ ,” she echoed, rolling her eyes. 

Kimte had elected to ignore her, continuing. “Coulson assembled a team of some of the most famous agents in this facility. Himself, obviously, Melinda May, or The Calvary, as we know her, Grant Ward,” she said more softly, and Clarice and Rajiya frowned. Crawford would have to ask about that later.

Kimte continued. “Ah, Fitzsimmons, of course, and, drumroll, please— Daisy Johnson. But back then, she was Skye. A hacker.”

Rajiya stopped with her fork in her mouth, stared at Kimte, and then at Crawford, and back into her thermos. Crawford put her sandwich down, her eyebrows creasing as she tried to comprehend what Kimte was saying. 

“Quake? Vigilante Quake? On-the-run Quake?”

Kimte nodded. “The very same.”

Rajiya was shaking her head furiously. “But S.H.I.E.L.D.’s looking for her now. She has a history with, like, half the leadership here. Why would she leave?”

Kimte shrugged. “I don’t know. It all happened when S.H.I.E.L.D was small, and not many people discuss the old days around here. For obvious reasons. It must’ve been something drastic, is what I think.”

The group nodded in unison, all thinking of some horrible atrocity that might’ve occurred. Crawford had trouble wrapping her head around the fact that Quake was also a computer scientist, apparently, if she could hack. What had caused her to take that up? Who were her family? How did she become an Inhuman? The thoughts clouded her mind before they were interrupted by Kimte’s voice. 

“They flew around the world in an old version of the Zephyr that they called the ‘Bus’, fighting crime, etc. I don’t know for sure, but from a glimpse of the files that I was organizing during inventory, I accidentally—“

“Accidentally—“ Clarice echoed again, under her breath this time. 

“ _Accidentally_ glanced through Simmons’s history. And when they were on that plane, she contracted an alien virus, and was treated for that, of course, but also— just wait for it— injuries she could’ve sustained from jumping out of a plane _without_ a parachute.”

Crawford gasped, trying to imagine her boss falling through the air. 

“You’re kidding me,” Rajiya scoffed, engrossed in her food. “Simmons? Nope. I can’t see it happening.”

Kimte smiled, shrugging. “You’re just gonna have to believe me then.”

Rajiya shook her head, laughing incredulously. “This is some next level shit for a scientist, that’s all I’m saying.”

Clarice raised her eyebrows. “You don’t even know the half of it yet.” At that, Rajiya put her palm to her forehead and sighed in disbelief. Crawford, on the other hand, was on the edge of her seat. She didn’t know why for sure, but she could tell that Simmons was strong, and she wanted to hear how. “Come on, Kimte, keep going!” she cajoled softly, received with a look of happy surprise by the older agent, who took a quick bite and continued. 

“According to Coulson, she’d decided to die for her team rather than risk their contacting the virus. But the best part is,” she paused, locking eyes with her little audience, “Is that Coulson had made Simmons, Ward, who’d saved her, and Fitz get checked out. That means that Fitz must’ve been in contact with Simmons at some point. My theory is that he tried to stop her from jumping or worked on an antidote with her, the one that cured her.”

“But we’ll never know for sure, will we?” Rajiya mused, her chin on her palm. 

“Not unless we ask one of the originals, no,” Kimte replied, pursing her lips. “And I wouldn’t advise that. I’m heard they’re very secretive about their past missions and successes and things. And with the Director, of course, it’s all about the _team_ —“

“Team, team, bleh. Is anyone else incredibly sick of his little catchphrase?” Rajiya commented, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her forefingers. 

Crawford pointed to herself, Kimte nodded her head vigorously, and Clarice hummed in agreement. After the raucous died down, Clarice stood, dusted herself off, and then offered her arms to Kimte and Crawford, pulling the two of them up. As the little group went their separate ways from the locker room, Crawford stuffed her lunch in her locker and closed it gingerly, wincing at the whine of the metal. She heard Rajiya’s laugh echo as the technician left the room, half running, half walking to the workshop. 

_“Back to glorious, wonderful, magnificent inventory,”_ she thought as she walked down the hall, turning into the lab. After making herself comfortable on the floor, she got back to work, picking up after she left off. Since she was relatively early from lunch, the her view of lab was empty, apart from agents coming and going, picking up stacks of paper and tablets and other items that needed sorting. She craned her neck, looking for the source of the soft murmuring she heard from behind her, and was surprised to find that that part of the lab was devoid of agents as well. She put a batch of serum down, quieting herself, trying to make out what the voices were saying. 

_“No, Jemma, don’t—”_

_“Keep still. This will probably hurt a lot.”_

_“A lot? Jesus, I thought you had mastered this stuff a while ago,_ Doctor Doctor Simmons _.”_

_“Maybe I could’ve gotten the hang of it sooner if you hadn’t run off,_ Skye. _”_

The voices, one which she recognized, were coming from the storage closet she had her back to. One thing was for sure: Crawford had lost her place in inventory.


	5. eavesdropping

“Jemma! Go easy on the- oh- ahh—“

“Shut up, Daisy. They’re all going to be coming in soon.”

“When’d you get so knife happy? Christ, I’m in more pain then I was before you decided to help me—“

“And you’re lucky I even agreed to this. Do I have to gag you?”

“Gag me? _Gag_ me? I miss the old you.”

There was a pause. Crawford looked down and realized she’d been holding her hands together so tight that her skin was yellow and pasty below her wrist. She felt crappy for listening in, but she couldn’t help it. The thought of her boss arguing with Quake, the wanted inhuman, was just too enticing. 

A long pause, which Crawford, even from outside the closet, could sense a kind of rift, was interrupted by her boss’s voice. 

“The old me is gone. I’m never going to be that girl that doctored you on the Bus again. And you’re definitely not the hacker that got shot. It’s… _different_ now.”

Crawford heard rustling and a soft groan, stopped by Simmons’s frustrated tsking and one of her classic deep sighs. 

“Daisy, you need to stay here—”

“I get the point, Simmons.” Quake was being curt. Why was she being curt?

“Oh, you know for a fact that I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Keep your voice down. You said yourself, they’ll be back from their break soon.”

Crawford saw the doorknob twist and turned away, pretending to be invested in her work. Her eyes shifted across the room, seeing a couple agents, including Kimte, on the far side of the lab, huddled together and probably talking about something to do with inventory. She hoped that they were so engrossed in their discussion that they hadn’t heard anything. 

She wanted to keep it that way. If Daisy Johnson was seen at the Playground, talking with Jemma Simmons, Daisy would most definitely be taken in, and Simmons would lose her job. And if Jemma Simmons, her boss, the most professionally-morally-lawful person she’d ever known was trying to keep Quake’s presence a secret, she would too. Quake had done nothing but Robin Hood her way through corruption, anyway. It’s not like she’d gone all super-villain. If she had, the Avengers would’ve gotten involved. 

Besides, they were all spies, really. This whole ‘under-the-radar’ thing should come as like second nature to Crawford, right? 

So she scooted herself across the floor, edging towards the closet door. She prayed that Daisy wouldn’t quake the door in a fit of fury and knock Crawford out in the process. They were speaking so silently now that she had to press the back of her head to the wall, holding her tablet and glancing at it occasionally to feign a semblance of normalcy. 

“… all we’ve been through, and you’re leaving _again_?”

“Try not to sound so disappointed, Simmons.” 

“Jesus, Daisy, don’t you get it? You’re— you’re like a sister to me. A _sister_. I hate seeing you in pain and I can tell you’re still suffering from the aftershocks of Lincoln’s—“ 

“Aftershocks. Nice.” 

“Look at me,” Crawford heard her murmur, her voice quivering. “ _Look_ at me.” Her voice was so soft and sad and full of pain that Crawford shivered. 

“Don’t— don’t _touch_ me, Jemma—“ 

“I don’t care if you’re cursed, or some nonsense. Fitz thinks he and I are. Coulson, he’s been through hell, and May— well, you know her better than I do. Mack lost a daughter, and Yo-Yo lost her cousin, and we all lost Trip,” her words continued to shake and Crawford bit her lip, staring at the screen of her tablet, trying to stay emotionless. 

“… you, Daisy, you’ve lost the most of all of us, and then you were gone. We lost you too. And if you can’t tell it by now, I don’t have the strength to lose anyone else. For all I know, we’re cursed together. But I’m not going to let you destroy yourself because you think you deserve it. You are my teammate, my friend,” she repeated, “my sister. I am going to get Fitz and we’re going to figure this out. The Director, the bastard, he’s separated us, but only because he knows that if we team up again—” 

“We’ll be unstoppable,” Daisy said softly, her scratchy voice barely audible. Had Quake been crying? 

“Exactly,” Jemma replied, clearing her throat. “Exactly. So you stay here, and I’ll get the rest of them.” 

Crawford realized that the door was going to be opened and she would be discovered to be obviously overhearing their conversation. 

Oops. 

She pushed herself towards the ICER serum, trying to act suave but being so awkwardly attention-grabbing that she honestly thought a scene like this could’ve been in a sitcom. Glancing at the huddled group in the corner, she caught the eye of Kimte, who smiled and then frowned and then scrunched her eyebrows together like she’d seen something incredibly hilarious but utterly confusing. Crawford didn’t blame her. 

Crawford thanked her silently when she saw her eyes roll and focus back to her group. She turned back to the closet, at first hoping that the pair of them would just stay in their until the end of the day, getting Crawford out of any confrontation or trouble at all. But sure enough, Crawford saw the doorknob twist, and then door creak open, and Simmons’s head pop out. Trying hard not to be noticed, Crawford focused totally on the serum pellet that she was clinging onto, looking around the lab as un-conspicuously as she could muster. 

“Em, Agent Crawford, could you come here?” 

The orchestra in her head went down a very somber chromatic scale as Crawford looked up, trying to feign surprise. She stood, walked the short distance as professionally as she could muster, and waited expectantly for Simmons’s reply, ignoring her boss’s somewhat frantic look and the fact that her head was the only part of her body that Crawford could see. She looked like the LMD head that Crawford had been analyzing before inventory became a thing. Simmons then pulled her into the closet and shut the door softly, pursing her lips. From where she was standing, Crawford couldn’t see Quake, and she guessed that Simmons wanted it to stay that way. For their sake, she decided not to snoop around. 

“Alright, Crawford,” Simmons muttered softly, “I’m going to ask you to do something and you’re going to do it. Without any questions.” Crawford nodded, but her interior monologue was running at full speed. Simmons, looking quite guilty, was clutching her hands tightly together. 

“In a moment, you’re going to ask everyone in this room to leave, immediately, saying… em, that you’ve received a message from me. Then, you’re going to call Agent Fitz from my cell phone and tell him to get to the lab. Once he gets here, you’ll exit promptly, and forget that any of this ever happened.” 

“So _sinister_ , Simmons,” a voice from behind Crawford chuckled softly. Quake was behind her, evidently pressed against the back of the door so she couldn’t been seen from the outside when it was opened. Crawford tried to pretend like she hadn’t noticed anything as Simmons glared over her shoulder. 

Eyes still locked on the inhuman standing directly behind Crawford, Simmons reached into her back pocket and unlocked her phone, pulling up Fitz’s contact before placing it in her palm. She sighed and looked at Crawford again, smiling. “Be loud, Agent Crawford. And seem worried. But don’t answer their questions, if they have any. Oh lord, what if they ask questions?” 

“ _There’s_ my Jemma—“ 

“Dai— ah, don’t you fret, Crawford, you’ll be fine!“ Simmons said, aware of her slip up and putting on a cheery face. With that, she reached behind Crawford and opened the door, gingerly pushing Crawford out of it. 

The door shut with a finality and Crawford inhaled. 

_Here we go._


	6. an announcement

Agent Crawford stood a little straighter, palmed the cell phone in her hand, and then dramatically cleared her throat. 

No one even glanced her way. 

She clenched her jaw and looked at her shoes. She had a couple of options: either make the announcement and stand her ground, leave Quake and Simmons to their own devices and dash out the door, or alert Director Mace. Or, she could stay where she stood until the end of the day and just let Quake and Simmons starve in the closet. 

Her veneration of the rulebook and her respect towards those that wrote it made her want to lean one way, but something inside of her, her gut, maybe, was telling her to lean towards the other. She just had to do it. She _had_ to. 

“Excuse me, everyone?” she called out feebly, her eyes flickering from Simmons’s cell phone in her hand to the group discussing in the corner. Out of all of them, Kimte was the only one who glanced her way. They made eye contact and Crawford clenched her jaw again, trying to look official and serious and completely nonchalant and like an "Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.". Kimte, catching her drift, stopped talking and turned to face her. The rest of the group did the same, curious looks on their faces. 

“Agent Simmons has requested that the lab be cleared out, em, immediately,” she said, her voice stronger than she expected. “There’s a biohazard in the… in the ICER serum that I’ve been doing inventory on, so she’s asked me to stay and de-contaminate the rest of it. So everyone, please leave the room while she and I... deal with it. Thank you.” 

The agents, wary of Simmons’s rank, filed out, albeit a little confused. They whispered in hushed tones and one of them even scoffed at Crawford, shaking his head. Kimte, glancing back at her friend, pushed the group along as they made their way towards the exit. Crawford was proud of herself, to say the least. She’d done what Simmons had expected of her and hadn’t vomited or turned into a tomato. So what if a bland, white, male agent didn't like it?

“Hey, Crawford?” Kimte said from the doorway, her brow furrowed. Crawford bit her lip and walked briskly to meet her there. 

“Whatever’s going on, I just hope you don’t get…” Kimte, her face suddenly aged, looked at Crawford beseechingly. “I just hope you know what you’re doing, and that Simmons sanctioned whatever this is,” she continued, gesturing towards the ICER serum laid out on the floor in what had previously been Crawford’s workspace and then shifting her gaze onto the phone in Crawford’s hands, her eyes widening. “Is that—”

“Could you please get Agent Fitz for me, Kimte?” Crawford interrupted, slipping Simmons’s phone in her lab coat pocket. Kimte shook her head, sighing deeply. Before she could get another word out, Crawford took a glance towards the serum pods, letting her anxiety manifest itself on her face. Hopefully Kimte would think she was worried about the ‘contaminates’ and let it go. 

And let it go she did, thank god. Kimte sighed and nodded, briskly walking out the door and towards the storage room, where Crawford presumed Fitz was working. For the first time it what seemed like forever, Crawford exhaled, flexing her arms and rolling her shoulders. She shut the door to the lab and locked it, wracking her mind through S.H.I.E.L.D.’s safety protocols as she dashed around the lab, looking for the biohazard warning signs to hang on the glass walls for passerby to see, and hanging one in the doorway when she finally came across it. Rummaging through the storage drawers, she grabbed a paper mask and pulled some rubber gloves on, trying to make her ruse seem a bit plausible.

She could see agents stopping in the hall, peering through the glass walls of the lab, trying to make out what the problem was. Crawford, in her infinite wisdom and equally infinite anxiety, elected to ignore them. This part of Simmons’s plan was entirely up to her to accomplish, and though she did wonder if Simmons remembered that everyone could see inside the lab at all times, because of, well, _the glass_ , she decided to hope that Simmons knew what she was doing. 

Of course she knew what she was doing, right? She was Jemma Simmons. She’d _jumped out of a plane._

So Crawford, trying to look busy, moved the serum pods from the floor to one of the lab tables, arms straining with the effort. Gingerly placing stray pods back into their respective trays, she secured each with biohazard tape that she had been using for inventory. 

While she worked, her hands shaking, she prayed that Kimte had found Fitz, that he was coming, and that she could get out of this situation sooner than later. Crawford shifted her eyes towards the door, seeing the agents’ confused looks, and reached an arm up, waving as if to say “Everything’s under control”, or at least expressing some semblance of calm. 

Just as she was bringing her arm down, she saw Agent Fitz run around the corner, with Kimte following close behind, struggling to keep up. He looked incredibly distraught as he fought the door’s lock and banged on the glass, his voice foggy but the general mood quite clear. Crawford had only seen the agent in passing and had thought him to be a timid man. But with his hand pressed against the glass door and his face lined with confusion, anger, and fear all mixed together as one, her once quiet picture of him changed. 

Crawford set the serum pod she was holding down on the table, carefully so as not to break it, and took a breath, walking calmly towards the door. After her shaky hands unlocked it, he pushed the handle, looking around the lab and then back at her, breathing heavily. 

“Where is Agent Simmons? What is going on?” he gasped, one hand brushing his temple while the other clenched and unclenched. His accent was thick and fast and she had trouble discerning what he meant to say at first. 

Crawford inhaled. “Sir,” she said, as softly as she could muster, “I need you to go into the storage closet.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What d’you mean, into the storage closet?! Where is Agent Simmons?” 

In her peripheral vision she could see more and more agents crowding around the lab, Kimte one of them, her lips pulled tight. 

“Just… just do it. Agent Simmons in there, with, em…”

He didn’t let her finish, brushing past her and making his way toward the closet. Then, he would open it, and the entire Playground would see Quake and Simmons together and it would be akin to treason and everyone in the lab would lose their jobs including Crawford—

She dodged in front of Fitz, back to the door, and pleaded with him. “Please, sir, em, don’t—“

"Christ,” he muttered, gazing at her rather incredulously, “Let me open the door.”

She shook her head, trying so hard to communicate what she was trying to say but unsure how to. “Don’t let them see—“

Fitz pushed her aside albeit much more gently that she had expected and she sighed, glancing at the crowd forming and then back at the scene in front of her. Fitz had opened the door a crack and his face was emotionless, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Not the reaction she’d expected, to say the least.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i've always wanted to write a fic like this so my friends who have no idea about fitzsimmons can read it and catch up to me. and i love that the mystical 'fitzsimmons' is SHIELD lore. i'll continue it, i swear!!


End file.
